Review: Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 may need more time in the oven

Want to watch a movie while jotting down notes and checking Twitter? Don't.

Setting aside the question of whether Philadelphia has any good pizza for a moment, two of South Philly's most important pizza joints are Lorenzo's and Mama Palma's. Lorenzo’s makes the best slice of cheese you’ll find in southeastern Pennsylvania, and that’s it—no toppings offered. Fans of the pie maker will line up around the block to get a late-night slice, though the line moves pretty fast since the only question is how many slices to order. Meanwhile, down by the Schuylkill is Mama Palma’s, whose menu belies its ho-hum name. At Mama’s you can get a traditional margherita or a hoisin-covered Peking Duck. Eclectic is Mama's style, though the offerings can be... hit or miss.

Why are we talking about Philadelphia pizza on Ars? Simple: because I’m hungry, and because it's metaphor time. Samsung catches flak from a lot of folks for its approach to consumer electronics. Where Google tends to try out an idea to see if it flies before committing to it, Samsung has been more about flying, well, everything. And love it or leave it, no Samsung product line exemplifies that approach as well as the Galaxy Note. You can see Ron Amadeo’s take on the Galaxy Note 3 phone/tablet here, but in this piece we’re taking a look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition). Grab some parmesan and extra napkins and have a seat.

The crust and the toppings

The original Galaxy Tab 10.1 wasn’t unloved for its appearance. The design was simple, and given the proportions, it was meant to be used primarily in landscape. Today’s Note 10.1 hews close to the look of its ancestor, but with a bit more embellishment. Its height and width are both a bit less than its forebear, tightening up the bezels and giving it a more compact feel. However, the device is a hair thicker in exchange.

Specs at a glance: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition)

Screen

2560×1600 10.1" (299 PPI) LCD touchscreen

OS

Android 4.3 "Jelly Bean"

CPU

1.9GHz Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (Exynos 5420)

RAM

3GB

GPU

Mali-T628

Storage

16GB or 32GB

Networking

Dual Band 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS

Ports

Micro USB 2.0, headphones, microSD

Camera

8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera

Size

243.1mm × 171.4mm × 7.9mm (5.95" × 3.12" × 0.33")

Weight

535g

Battery

8220 mAh

Price

$550 for 16GB, $600 for 32GB

Other features

IR blaster, S Pen

The front bezel is a stark white that matches the back, and the edge is chrome-like plastic with delicate ridges carved into it. The screen is flanked by stereo speakers facing out to the sides in landscape mode; to the left is a headphone jack, and to the right is a microSD card slot and the storage for the Note-defining stylus. Below is a microphone and a micro-USB port (2.0 only). On top is an IR blaster (because the '90s will never die) as well as power and volume controls, nicely raised from the rim so they’re easy to find. That white bezel features a Samsung logo centered above the screen, with the camera and proximity and/or light sensor to the left of it.

Centered below the screen is a physical home button with a menu button and a back button to the left and right, respectively. Flipping the Note 10.1 over shows a faux-leather textured plastic back, complete with stitching around the edges, along with a camera module with flash centered above the Samsung logo. The Note 10's backside texture and stitching is similar to the rear of the Galaxy Note 3. It's nice on a larger device, giving something for your fingers to grip.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 squared off with the original Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Real leather would certainly have added a sense of style and professionalism to the device. In the end, though, this design lacks any cohesion. The lengths Samsung has gone to emulate natural materials in plastic (the shiny plastic edge and textured back) make the experience feel false, not modern. Actual steel and leather would have been a feat, but this is chintzy.

Screen and camera

Even if design may have been skimped on, that screen is something. Using a near-identical panel to the one found in the Nexus 10 and the recently announced Kindle HDX, we’re excited to see pixel density in large Android tablets being taken seriously by more than just Google. The panel’s 2560×1600 resolution is quite easy on the eyes, and it's very easy to read on. The panel is LCD, not one of Samsung’s AMOLEDs, so colors are bright without being over-saturated.

However, Samsung isn't above giving users who want gob-smacking colors the ability to dial them up to that level—there's still a selection of brightness and color calibration settings that mainly aim to saturate and desaturate as appropriate to the content. By default Samsung leaves this setting in Auto, which allows it to adjust based on whether you’re reading an e-book or playing a game. Still, we would prefer a default "professional" setting that fixes the screen to a color standard.

Enlarge/ Display adjustments for the Galaxy Note 10.1 could use a "professional" setting.

The Note 10.1's camera is fine—it's not exceptional, but it isn't terrible, either. Having tablet cameras lagging a generation behind the ones in smartphones is no surprise, but this 8MP shooter benefits from Samsung’s current ISP solutions. The key differentiator is the ability to shoot quickly both in and out of HDR. The 8MP camera in the Samsung Galaxy S III had an HDR mode that worked reasonably well so long as you had a nice flat place to rest the phone, but any movement at all and the image was smeared and blurry. This isn't the case here.

6MP wide shot from Note 10.1.

6MP wide HDR shot from Note 10.1.

8MP shot in low light; note the noise in the shadows.

8MP HDR shot in low light; note the continued noise in the shadows.

With the Note 10.1’s hefty silicon, we can shoot HDR exclusively and get movement artifacts only with larger motion. It’s quite an advance, and it's one that puts a big dent in our general distaste for tablet-based photography. Still, even with the upgraded camera, you don't want to be that person blocking everyone's view while you're taking pictures with your giant tablet. Seriously.

Like eating pizza with chopsticks

The differentiation in the Note product lines has always been that stylus—it's the reason for the "Note" name, after all. The stylus is the digital analog of your pen or pencil. Children and young adults today may not have ever written a school report by hand or on lined paper, but I have. I hated it. Writing with a pen—or a stylus—means dealing with the vagaries of handwriting. I have awful handwriting and am not inclined to improve it. Still, it's legible, at least to me. While I wouldn’t write this review in script, I bravely took up the Note 10.1's stylus and jotted down some notes for myself.

And the experience? It wasn't awful. The stylus is smaller than a pencil, and handling it required some adjustment. It's not simply shorter like the pencils they give out at miniature golf courses—it's actually thinner. Adjusting doesn’t take long, though, and the reward is a pleasurable experience. The smooth plastic tip glides easily across the screen, and the text trail of simulated ink lags by a small fraction of a second. The pen emulates varying pressures using the velocity of the stylus, but this isn’t a pressure-sensitive Wacom layer. (Update 14:35 CDT: As noted in the comments, Wacom had previously stated that S Pen in the Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) is powered by a Wacom digitizer. My apologies for not checking with them.)

In short order, I was able to fill a page with notes about the experience, and after some fiddling, I also figured out how to add another page. I didn’t like the way I overran the boundaries of the lines on the page, so I increased the zoom and found I could fit more on each line this way. I filled page after page, and then I realized that I didn’t care. The experience would have been no more or less challenging if I used the keyboard on my notebook. It was certainly a better experience than the touch keyboard might have been, but that’s an awfully low bar. Tablets as notepads are not a new thing. This one is good, but I’m not sure I'll take enough notes like this to care.

If you’re a fan of portability and want to be able to jot down some easy notes—telephone numbers, directions, maybe even class notes—this may be an option that allows you to ditch physical notebooks. Unfortunately for Samsung, the legal pad and a ballpoint pen come in many shapes and sizes at considerably lower price points.